Maps

If you’ve ever hopped off a flight to London and taken the Underground into the city, you were treated to something remarkably British. Over the loudspeaker a soothing voice announces without a bit of a giggle, that you are on the train bound for… Cockfosters. It’s a name that would raise most english speaker’s eyebrows, but not the English themselves. Welcome to Great Britain, home of very silly names.…

Unless you’re obsessed with tables of numbers, most annual reports are about as thrilling as… well, tables and numbers. Add some well honed creativity however, and they can be seriously compelling. Take this example from the women empowering crew at Krochet Kids. In this case, the report’s art and even data visualizations are very appropriately hand sewn with thread – and it’s beautiful.…

If you’ve ever been in a class surrounded by people with the same name, they were probably on this map.Jezabel put together two utterly fascinating GIFs tracking the most popular boys and girls names over the last six decades – and it’s an epic battle of popularity.…

It’s official, the Scottish have chosen to stay with the United Kingdom after the historic vote on September 18th. Just how close was the decision? A margin of 55% voted to stay with the UK, while 45% voted for Scottish independence, with a large 85% of voters turning out. It was a decisive victory for those wanting to retain the connection to England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and as this map from The Economist details, most of Scotland’s 32 councils supported the No vote.…

Did you know German is the third most spoken language in Colorado, or that it’s Hmong in Minnesota? What’s the third most spoken language in your state?

This map is too interesting. Yes, most people in the US speak English in daily life, followed down the list by Spanish in all but seven states… but what comes third? This map from Slate details some surprising results and points to drastically different histories of immigration across the US.…

If you’re like many of us data hungry people, you don’t just go running anymore. While you’re listening to your tunes pounding down the pavement, you’re also tracking where you are, how far you’ve run, how fast you’re going and even your elevation… all with a smartphone app. While that data on ourselves is highly useful, there’s often a big piece missing – everyone else. Nathan Yau, the statistics obsessed fellow at Flowing Data, recently pulled the pubic user information from the fantastic app Run Keeper, giving us a look at the popular running routes of major world cities… the results are fascinating, informative and reveal juicy runner secrets.…

While completely useless to a lost global traveler, Fernando Vicente’s map paintings offer a spectacular visual relief. A Madrid-based painter and illustrator, Vicente uses delicate vintage maps as canvases in his “Atlas Series.” The artist illustrates human faces, animals, and skulls on the maps, allowing the geographic boundaries of each to shape the contours and shapes of his subjects. In dark, lush gestures, he seamlessly orients an ancient profile on the outline of Spain and imagines a rearing elephant’s trunk on the tip of South America.…